1. I sort of feel the opposite. When people starts complaining about his hair, his personality, his multiple fall cushion (there is no such thing), then yes, that's bashing. It appears in every thread where Chan is somewhat included.
2. I completely agree with this, and critizing a performance is in no way bashing.
3. I never stated that. Of course you should be allowed to like/dislike a skater, but you shouldn't attack them as soon as the opportunity comes along.
4. Can't say I've seen it/noticed it. The place where I have seen it is Mao vs Yuna, and I really hope people would not bring that level of imaturity here.
5. Well, of course they will. Speaks for itself. But there is a difference between critizing a performance based on your emotions or with technical knowledge of why that result came into place.

You keep talking about artistry but you never back up with facts. Besides, the word artistry is not mentioned anywhere in the rules, and therefore no one is judged on artistry. The thing is, what is artistic to you might not be artistic to some, and vice verca. This has all got to do with cultural differences, age differences, educational differences, etc etc.. The judges are marking the PCS by a set of criteria, and it is up to the skater to demonstrate as many of these criteria's as they can during the time frame they have. If you look at all these criterias, I can guarantee you it will make you better understand why the PC are given the way they are. I am not saying you have to agree with the result, but at least it might give you an idea of why it is the way it is.

And btw, the judges are NOT ranking the skaters. The techinal panel decides the difficulty of each element seperatly, and so do the judges with their GOE. They mark the quality of each individual element. If you look at the protocol from this event, you can see that Chan was punished for the mistake he did by the maximum amount of deduction. That does not mean he is supposed to get punished on the rest, which he did well.

I think the hair part is meant as joke only, nothing serious. I do agree with the rest of what you said. No matter what Chan does or doesn't do, some people will just hate him and there will always be controversial about his marks. It's a tradition on this board.

I totally agree with you about the bold part, that has me worry about his SP scores this year. Can you explain about the "new GOE limitations on his footwork" as I'm not familiar with it? Thanks.

Not a huge deal.

During the 2010/2011 season, the level four footwork season had a base value of 3.90, and that has remained unchanged. However, the GOEs one can get lower now. Last season, +3 across the board would net the skater three extra points, for a total of 6.90 (I believe the points were straight +1, +2, and +3, directly corresponding to the GOEs given) . Now, +3 across the board would get only 2.1 points (total = 6.00), +2 scores 1.4 and +1 scores 0.7 (so essentially a 30% reduction in possible GOE earned).

This can clearly be seen comparing Takahashi's 2011 NHK SP and Chan's 2011 World SP scores for footwork. Takahashi got six +3s and three +2s, for a factored GOE of 1.90 (source). Chan got the reverse, six +2s and three +3s, but the factoring gave him a GOE of 2.29 (source). All that means for Chan (and Takahashi and Fernandez and....) is that an element he can score well with is worth slightly less.

Every men's thread turns into an argument about Patrick-bashing. It's boring! Why can't people accept that there are differences of opinion? You will never, ever, ever convert the whole forum to Patrick-love by fighting them. That said, there is tons of respect for him here, but all some people hear is bashing.

I don't think that's true. I don't think some (such as me) are trying to convince others to love Patrick. It's more like defending some ridiculous accusation that's far from the truth. As they always say, hater's gonna hate.

No matter what Chan does or doesn't do, some people will just hate him and there will always be controversial about his marks. It's a tradition on this board.

But....what skater is completely and universally loved by all fans? Every skater will have detractors of a sort and cries of WUZROBBED and OVERSCORED are practically endemic to this board, and not only regarding Patrick. Are differences in opinion not allowed?

It must be great to find one expert comment that can be used suitably. Damn all other professional opinions.

I watched only EuroSport today, so I didn't even have to look for it. If you can give us the links to "all other professional opinions" that agreed with his high score today, that would be nice of you.

I certainly agree that Song is not in a high league re artistry -- but neither is Chan. I did say that Chan should edge Song by virtue of his better "posing" skills and his superior blade work, so obviously Chan's PCS in my estimate would be higher than Song's, but IMO, Chan's weakness in artistry is masked by his superior ss. ITs very true that IJS loves to reward jumps over artistry. In general, skating officials have always tended to reward jumps over artistry. The problem is that under IJS, the PCS marks are often manipulated, and do not always accurately reflect a skater's level of presentation skills.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. What I was saying was the fact that you tend to put artistic skaters over tech-strong skaters was different from what the judges actually do. Bring some detailed numbers, so we could discuss them. Otherwise, it sounds baseless, especially with those reputation and politics accusations throwing around.

I wouldn't put Chan into artistic skaters category. And I agree that he doesn't have the best artistry in the world. But I very much agree with what Ilovefigures said. What is artistry? How do you judge artistry in PCS? According to the breakdowns in the 5 categories in PCS, Chan did well in general. He is a well rounded skater, better than artistic skaters who are often weak technically, such as Rippon; and better than pure technical skaters who are very much lack of artistic abilities, such as Song. It is baseless to put Chan and Song in the same group on artistry and seperated only by "posing" skills. (Yes, you did say superior blade work. But as you yourself said before, that doesn't belong to artistry.) The way you assess his skills was as if he has little or no artistry. That was why I say that Chan has good artistry, not the best, but very considerable. It was just the artistry you don't like.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. What I was saying was the fact that you tend to put artistic skaters over tech-strong skaters was different from what the judges actually do. Bring some detailed numbers, so we could discuss them. Otherwise, it sounds baseless, especially with those reputation and politics accusations throwing around.

I wouldn't put Chan into artistic skaters category. And I agree that he doesn't have the best artistry in the world. But I very much agree with what Ilovefigures said. What is artistry? How do you judge artistry in PCS? According to the breakdowns in the 5 categories in PCS, Chan did well in general. He is a well rounded skater, better than artistic skaters who are often weak technically, such as Rippon; and better than pure technical skaters who are very much lack of artistic abilities, such as Song. It is baseless to put Chan and Song in the same group on artistry and seperated only by "posing" skills. (Yes, you did say superior blade work. But as you yourself said before, that doesn't belong to artistry.) The way you assess his skills was as if he has little or no artistry. That was why I say that Chan has good artistry, not the best, but very considerable. It was just the artistry you don't like.

Enjoy the skaters you love, Bluebonnet. If you want to know what artistry is in figure skating, see my below response. Yes, since art is subjective, it is difficult to judge, and that is why PCS scores are so manipulable. No argument that Chan is not as poor in presentation skills as some skaters. He just does not excel in that area, despite his great ss making many feel that he does. These are my opinions. No, I do not feel Patrick Chan has "good artistry," nor do I think that he has "considerable artistry." Patrick will be 21 next month and he still has time to mature and further develop that aspect of his skating, hopefully, since it seems pretty soon the judges will declare he's already master of the universe! It's figure skating, so enjoy who you prefer. Debate is a huge part of figure skating.

Originally Posted by ILoveFigures

...

You keep talking about artistry but you never back up with facts. Besides, the word artistry is not mentioned anywhere in the rules, and therefore no one is judged on artistry. The thing is, what is artistic to you might not be artistic to some, and vice verca. This has all got to do with cultural differences, age differences, educational differences, etc etc.. The judges are marking the PCS by a set of criteria, and it is up to the skater to demonstrate as many of these criteria's as they can during the time frame they have. If you look at all these criterias, I can guarantee you it will make you better understand why the PC are given the way they are. I am not saying you have to agree with the result, but at least it might give you an idea of why it is the way it is.

And btw, the judges are NOT ranking the skaters. The techinal panel decides the difficulty of each element seperatly, and so do the judges with their GOE. They mark the quality of each individual element. If you look at the protocol from this event, you can see that Chan was punished for the mistake he did by the maximum amount of deduction. That does not mean he is supposed to get punished on the rest, which he did well.

ILoveFigures, do you really? I wish they would bring them back as a separate competition.

In regard to artistry in figure skating or in any endeavor, "facts" have nothing to do with emotion, imagination, beauty. Just as I mentioned to someone in another thread -- check out video clips of the great artist/ athletes who have graced the sport of figure skating, if you want to gain some sense of artistry on ice. The word can be looked up in the dictionary, but the feelings evoked by Janet Lynn, Toller Cranston, Matt Savoie, and Dai and Jeremy this season are indefinable, indescribable, unable to be contained or captured exclusively but the sheer artistry of their performances can be viewed inexhaustibly, and felt and experienced and perceived in different ways by different people. I don't care who "wins" GP final or Worlds, I only know that Dai and Jeremy have won my heart this season, and they win it practically every time they take the ice.

Yes the word "artistry" is not in the rules, thank god. I guess the ISU is at least smart enough to know that art can not be codified. They refer to "presentation" instead. One of the reasons why figure skating will always be a difficult sport to judge is because of the "artistic" nature of it which is part of the sport's very essence, and art is a subjective experience. That is why there will always be debate and controversy. I feel that the IJS system has complicated the judging process even further. Unfortunately, IJS was created by the ISU in a rushed manner mainly to protect judges and to pacify the IOC. The ISU has been trying to make IJS work ever since, and the process of trying to fix it (pun intended) and make it work will continue far into the future. Meanwhile, IJS is here to stay and its probably a lot of fun and a blast for those who love numbers and protocols and enjoy lecturing other fans and talking about GOEs, PCS, TES, technical panels, etc. in order to "back up" their perceptions and opinions, or to just have lively CoP-fest conversations.

Of course 6.0 was imperfect as well, but there may have been a way to improve that system without throwing it out completely, but that would have taken too much time and thought, and the ISU was in a hurry to implement and enforce. The irony is that the ISU should have tried to work on improving the judging a long time before 2002. Because the ISU is slow to change, it has been brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century, still holding on to antiquated attitudes and corrupt politics. The IJS system does not eliminate politics, nor prevent corruption. It simply prevents detection of politics and corruption, and thereby avoids scandal. All systems are corrupt, and demand strict adherence, and are ultimately ineffective, despite their mandated power. I don't think every judge is dishonest, or that the system doesn't work in some ways, or that the scoring is always wrong. The scoring is just very complicated and doesn't always make sense, plus it is not as exciting in the kiss n' cry anymore.

Who said Chan needs to be "punished"?

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. Thomas Merton

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. Albert Einstein

Florent Amodio: Oh, did Morosov misread this season or what? Right off the bat, we have an atrocious costume. Then comes that ridiculous take on “Summertime” (“Summertime” without Louis Armstrong’s sonorous trumpet is like Canadian winter with no snow. Doesn’t logically compute). The French federation and Stannick Jeannette need to stage an intervention stat – the choreography is bland, the interpretation mediocre and the ego overwhelming.

Chafik Besseghier: Okay, so that landing on the quad was just cool. Yeah it was an error, but I actually thought it was very neat and made a cool on ice picture. Bonus points for that. Boring choice of music, though, even with his obvious attack. It’s interesting to suppose – if Brian Joubert retires at the end of the season (or before then) Chafik is probably next in line (after Amodio).

Amodio - I vote for that intervention, ASAP. But Florent likes working with Morozov and actually fought with the FFSG to be allowed to continue doing so.

Chafik was so good in the SP at last year's TEB... I'm hoping for better skates from him in the future. Did you know he only started skating at age 12? And I think you were the one who mentioned a while ago how diverse team France is - Chafik definitely qualifies in that regard, and I hope seeing skaters of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds will be inspiring to younger kids and get them interested in skating.

Originally Posted by skatinginbc

I heard an EuroSport commentator saying that he felt Chan's high score was given somewhat based on who he was, not on how he skated. The professional opinion made me suspect that there might indeed be such thing as "cushion", or at least I know there is a voice out there from a skating expert thinking Chan did not deserve what he got.

Originally Posted by fscric

Out of curiosity, do you consider it a professional opinion when the EuroSport commentators proclaimed Patrick an artist at his last World's performance?

Chris Howath is the only ES commentator who really knows what he's talking about outside of ice dance, and even he has some moments.

Originally Posted by ImaginaryPogue

During the 2010/2011 season, the level four footwork season had a base value of 3.90, and that has remained unchanged. However, the GOEs one can get lower now. Last season, +3 across the board would net the skater three extra points, for a total of 6.90 (I believe the points were straight +1, +2, and +3, directly corresponding to the GOEs given) . Now, +3 across the board would get only 2.1 points (total = 6.00), +2 scores 1.4 and +1 scores 0.7 (so essentially a 30% reduction in possible GOE earned).

That sounds fair to me - high level step sequences have a BV like triples, so it's only fair that their GOEs are like triples, too.

The problem with the competition was the choices of music. It was dreadful with the arms flying about.
Patrick's hair didn't bother me but his skating was far from its best.
Nan Song did everthing methodical, and quite slow.
Michal's choice of music was dreadful. He should never use it again.
Adam should realize he is not a Russian skater.
Poor Nobi losing his elegant jumps

Chan is a brilliant skater (his edges, etc.) and he has won the WC. That title gives a skater reputation points (this is figure skating, LOL!!!). That should not happen, but it always has = as long as I have watched figure skating (since 1964). Chan´s way of floating on the ice really effortlessly has been noticed by the judges already when he did not have the titles, yet.

I would say that Song did not quite get the PCS he would have deserved. He needs to medal a bit more and skate really well in 2012 Worlds. After that his PCS score will go up, I believe.

Many sp programs were not shown on our tv, but one of them was that of Rippon. It is a beautiful program, but Rippon looks very slow and also hesitant before the 3 axel. I like curly hair, but his looks a total mess.